


Step Right Up

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Carnival, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, carnival games and fluff, that's pretty much it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: “You’re gonna blow your whole paycheck on this,” Jackson says with a sigh.Stiles just makes another toss, muttering, “Gonna get it. Gonna win that thing. Just gotta get…the right…angle…”Another miss, another encouraging noise from the booth worker, another ball in hand.“I’m dating an idiot,” Jackson declares. “A gullible and soon-to-be-broke idiot.”His idiot isn’t listening. His idiot is, in fact, paying for another round. Like the idiot he is.





	Step Right Up

**Author's Note:**

> i got bit by a fluff bug this morning and felt the irresistible urge to write Stackson at the fair, ya know, for reasons. because there is no way Stiles wouldn't be 3000% determined to win his boyfriend that big prize. he will win that thing even if it kills him.

Jackson has never been a big fan of the fair. It’s loud and smelly and overrun with people and nothing is actually worth its price tag. He took Lydia a few years ago, when she had a big group of “friends” who wanted to go, but all they did was wander around arm in arm and make snide comments about everything around them, so it doesn’t exactly make Jackson’s list of top ten dates in his life. After that date, he promised himself he wouldn’t bother wasting his time and money when the fair rolled into town again.

Then Stiles showed up at his door with a flyer in hand, practically bouncing on his feet, asking please, please, _please_ could they go. And Jackson caved like a house of cards.

So now he’s back at the fair, getting towed through the crowds—which are even smellier now that his nose is more sensitive—by his ecstatic boyfriend. But Stiles’ eyes light up as he gets the first glimpse of the ferris wheel in the distance, and Jackson can’t even be mad about it.

They’re halfway to the wheel when a megaphone-amplified voice calls out, _“Step right up, step right up!”_

Stiles pulls up short so fast that Jackson runs right into him.

“No,” Jackson says immediately.

“But Jax, look at all the—”

“These things are rigged and you know it.”

The booth worker points at Stiles, a huge grin on his face, and holds up his megaphone again. “There’s my man!” he says, smarmy as a used car salesman. “I know a competitive soul when I see one. Come on over and try your hand, pal. I bet you can do it.”

If luring in suckers is this guy’s job, he should be employee of the month because he’s sure got Stiles pegged. Honestly, calling him competitive is an understatement, and Jackson already knows he’s lost his boyfriend for the foreseeable future before Stiles even forks over his first five bucks.

It’s one of those bottle games, throwing little plastic balls to try and knock them over. The walls of the booth are lined with stuffed animals and blow-up cartoon characters and crazy hats. As soon as Stiles has the first ball in hand, he points up to the biggest stuffed animal—a lion that’s got to be four feet tall, with a huge mane of orange fuzz—and says, “ _That one._ ”

“Why do you even want that?” Jackson demands.

“Oh, it’s not for me,” Stiles says, hefting the ball. “It’s for you.”

Jackson rolls his eyes. “Why would _I_ want that?”

Stiles doesn’t hear him over the clatter of his first ball bouncing off the tops of three bottles before rolling to the ground. The booth worker makes an encouraging noise and passes him another ball. Stiles’ tongue pokes out of his mouth in his concentration as he lines up his next throw. Jackson has the absurd urge to tug on it, just for spite, but he has the feeling Stiles might not even notice.

He runs through his three balls without knocking any bottles over. Jackson reaches out to grab him by the arm, drag him away, _carry_ him off to the ferris wheel if he has to, but Stiles is already digging another five out of his pocket and handing it over.

“You’re gonna blow your whole paycheck on this,” Jackson says with a sigh.

Stiles just makes another toss, muttering, “Gonna get it. Gonna win that thing. Just gotta get…the right…angle…”

Another miss, another encouraging noise from the booth worker, another ball in hand.

“I’m dating an idiot,” Jackson declares. “A gullible and soon-to-be-broke idiot.”

His idiot isn’t listening. His idiot is, in fact, paying for another round. Like the idiot he is.

It’s another ten minutes of leaning up against the booth, watching Stiles throw and miss and curse, before Jackson loses his patience. With an expansive role of his eyes, he pushes off the booth and says, “I’m going for food,” and isn’t at all surprised when Stiles just mumbles something in his direction and throws again. “Try not to bankrupt yourself before I get back.”

The one truly redeeming feature to the fair, in Jackson’s opinion, is funnel cake. He’s not usually a big fan of awful, overpriced, unhealthy food, but he stands in line for fifteen minutes and coughs up twelve dollars for a plate full of grease-fried dough drowned in powdered sugar, and he internally vows to do some extra push-ups when he gets home as he bites into it.

He thinks of saving some of it for Stiles—he was almost as excited about the funnel cake as he was about the ferris wheel when he talked Jackson into coming to this stupid thing—but ultimately decides that Stiles forfeited his right to doughy goodness when he sold his soul to a stupid carnival game. If he wants any, he can come buy it himself. That is, if he can afford it by the time he finally gives up.

Jackson’s almost made it back to the booth, funnel cake mostly gone, when his phone rings. Kira’s name is on the screen, so Jackson wipes his sugary fingers off on the flimsiest paper napkin in existence and swipes to accept.

_“I can see you!”_

Jackson frowns and squints around, craning his neck to see over all the people. He catches sight of a flailing arm in the distance, waving back and forth, and follows it down to the smiling faces of Kira, Scott, and Lydia.

“I can see you too,” he says.

 _“Where’s Stiles?”_ Kira asks.  _“We’re going to ride the Zipper. We’re already halfway up the line so you can just cut in with us.”_

“Stiles is…” Jackson cranes his neck the other direction, the crowd helpfully parting just enough for him to see Stiles still at that stupid booth, cursing up a storm as he digs around in his wallet yet again. “…occupied.”

Kira makes a disappointed noise and turns to relay the news to Scott. Jackson can hear his disappointed noise over the phone too. Lydia just shakes her head and steps forward as the line moves up. The ride ahead of them takes off, screams and shrieks of laughter ringing out as the riders get thrown back and forth like ragdolls.

Jackson glances back at Stiles. Then at the ride. At Kira’s hopeful face in the distance. Back at Stiles again.

“I’ll be right there.”

 

* * *

 

The Zipper almost breaks Jackson’s fucking spine, but he ends up laughing until his stomach hurts anyway. Lydia holds his hand in a painful vise grip when the Pirate Ship goes upside down with nothing but centrifugal motion to hold them in place. Jackson does the bumper cars on the condition that he gets to ram Scott’s car at least once and Scott has to let him. Kira tries to talk him into going on that stupid Teacup ride, but Jackson puts his foot down on that one.

And Stiles is still playing that fucking game. Whenever they’re near enough, Jackson peers through the crowd to verify, and Stiles is still at that booth, wholly focused on his mission. Around the fourth time Jackson checks in, Stiles has acquired a little stuffed elephant. Its tiny trunk is sticking out of his jacket pocket, so clearly he knocked over _something,_ but it’s not enough and he’s throwing again.

On the way to the Music Express, they pass near enough to hear Stiles yelling about how the game is rigged. Jackson sighs so hard that Lydia laughs at him, but honestly, he _told_ Stiles that at the start, and did he listen?

“Should we rescue him?” Scott asks, marveling that Stiles is three feet away and hasn’t noticed them. “Maybe it’s like the Lotus thing in Percy Jackson and he literally can’t leave. We might need to break the spell.”

Kira looks mildly concerned, but Lydia snorts. “The only spell he’s under is his own pigheadedness.”

“I’ll come back for him later,” Jackson promises. “Probably.”

 

* * *

 

It’s almost eleven o’clock by the time Scott has to get home, citing an early shift at the clinic. Kira and Lydia drift off with him, leaving Jackson to wind his way back through the throng—thinning out now as the evening winds down—until he finds that booth again.

Stiles is still fucking there, trading verbal jabs with the booth worker, but at least this time he notices when Jackson leans up against the table beside him.

“This is stupid,” Jackson says, beyond exasperated.

“ _You’re_ stupid,” Stiles shoots back. Because that’s just his reflexive response to any insult thrown his way. Because he’s actually a ten year old at heart. At least the face he makes proves that he’s aware of how ridiculous he sounds.

Jackson counters with, “Then why are you dating me?” like he’s done a million times before.

Unlike the previous million times, instead of responding with something pithy or salacious, Stiles breaks out into a huge grin.

“For the satisfaction of giving you _this!_ ”

He turns and snaps his fingers at the booth worker. The guy looks a little shell-shocked, which is neither a rare nor an unreasonable response to spending copious amounts of time with Stiles, but he obligingly turns to his wall of prizes. Using one of those long hooks, he reaches up and up and up to retrieve—

 “Oh my god,” Jackson says faintly as the giant stuffed lion is deposited into Stiles’ arms. “You actually did it.”

“You’re damn right, I did,” Stiles crows, his triumph only slightly muffled by the synthetic mane covering most of his face. “I made that game my _bitch!_ And it only took me—” He jostles the lion a bit so that he can check his watch, and even the copious amounts of fur aren’t enough to cover up his grimace. “—two hours, oh jeez.”

Jackson raises an eyebrow at him, arms crossed and head cocked. “Yeah, Stiles,” he says. “Two hours you could’ve spent with _me._ At the fair that _you_ begged me to come to.”

A hopeful attempt at a smile on his face, Stiles hefts the giant lion up a little higher. “I got you the big prize, though? You like prizes!”

Jackson raises the eyebrow even more.

Stiles deflates with a gusty sigh. The lion thunks onto the ground at his feet and he reaches out to cup Jackson’s cheek instead.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m a total sucker. I got suckered good.”

“You really did. It’s a little pathetic, not gonna lie.”

Stiles ignores that in favor of asking, earnest as anything, “How can I make it up to you?”

A lot of options go through Jackson’s mind, everything from sexual favors to making Stiles do his laundry for a month, but ultimately there’s only one thing he wants.

“Just kiss me, dumbass.”

Stiles does, soft and apologetic, his hand a warm and comforting weight on the back of Jackson’s neck. The lion ends up smooshed, trapped between their bodies, but neither of them really cares in the moment. They linger there long enough for the booth worker to cough loudly at them in a very unsubtle plea for them to move out of the way now that Stiles isn’t funneling money his way anymore.

Stiles reluctantly trades his hold on his boyfriend for the giant lion again, tucking it under his arm as he takes a look at his surroundings for the first time in two hours. Half the rides around them have already shut down for the evening, and the flow of traffic is moving steadily toward the exits now.

“Wow, I really did miss the whole thing, didn’t I?”

He actually sounds sad about it, too. It almost makes Jackson feel bad for not forcibly dragging him away when Scott suggested it. But Stiles keeps scratching at the lion’s ear like it’s a real animal that needs petting, and he still looks unbearably proud of himself over the damn thing, and Jackson can’t begrudge him that. Not when it was all for _him_ anyway. After all, that’s what guys _do_ for their partners at fairs, isn’t it? They show off at the games and win prizes to impress them.

Considering how rigged those games usually are, Jackson _is_ actually pretty impressed that Stiles won. Eventually. Not that he’s going to admit that tonight.

“You did,” he says instead. “You even missed me kicking Scott’s ass in bumper cars.”

Stiles makes a distressed noise, his face the picture of betrayal. “You went on the bumper cars without me?”

Jackson’s judgmental look shuts that up quick, but it doesn’t erase his pout. He’s just lucky that it’s a cute pout and that Jackson is weak for it. A little smile breaks through when Jackson takes hold of his non-lion-occupied hand, lacing their fingers together.

“You know,” Jackson says idly. “The fair doesn’t leave until Monday.”

Stiles throws him a sidelong glance, skeptical but intrigued. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Jackson shrugs. “Maybe.”

“You would really come back with me tomorrow?” Stiles asks, his smile growing.

“I could maybe be convinced,” Jackson says, fighting a smile of his own. “Tonight wasn’t a total bust, even with my idiot boyfriend completely ignoring me the whole night.” He pairs the pointed comment with a shoulder bump and a hand squeeze, which Stiles returns with a sheepish grin. “You better make a second ticket worth my while, though,” he warns.

“I totally will,” Stiles swears. “It’s gonna be great! We’ll ride all the rides, and it’ll be the fair’s off day so the lines won’t be as long, and I’ll buy you yummy fair food and hold your hand on rides, and we’ll take cheesy romantic selfies at the top of the ferris wheel, and you can kick _my_ ass at bumper cars even though there’s not really any winning or losing in bumper cars, now that I think about it, and—”

Jackson drags Stiles around by the hand and cuts off his rambling with another kiss. Stiles’ disappointed noise when he pulls back, so Jackson doesn’t go far.

“I just want you here with me,” he says.

Stiles presses a smile against his lips and murmurs back, “I am. And I will be.”

“Good.”

One more kiss and Jackson has to make himself stop. If he kisses Stiles as much as he wants to, they’ll get locked in and have to spend the whole night here, which is one nightmare he doesn’t need. Besides, he has plans for when they get home.

So he leads the way toward the parking lot, Stiles at his side, swinging that godforsaken lion back and forth.

“So you don’t hate the fair anymore?” Stiles asks.

Jackson glances over his shoulder, eyeing the curve of the ferris wheel they didn’t get around to riding, bright and blinking against the dark of the night sky. He grins.

“I’ve had worse dates.”

Jackson has to admit that this one definitely makes his top ten. Maybe the top three. And when they spend ten minutes in the parking lot, leaned up against the jeep and necking like teenagers, all the twinkly lights in the background and the lion judging them from the passenger seat, he thinks it might even make it to number one.

**Author's Note:**

> [rebloggable on tumblr!](https://clotpolesonly.tumblr.com/post/185865722816/step-right-up)


End file.
